Diplomacy is a very valuable because it allows us to interact between other countries. It is used to negotiate with other countries for compromises and to prevent war. But as we can see, it hasn’t been entirely effective in the past. Diplomatic relations in World War 1 (WW1) was a huge part of why it happened. The ignition point of WW1 was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary. The killer was Princip of Serbia. Princip was part of a terrorist group called the Black Hand. The Black Hand was an organization that planned political assassinations.
But before this assassination, there was a build up to the assassination. Before the war, in 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is part of the Balkans. This would give them more control because they are controlling more of Europe. Serbia, just south of Austria-Hungary, was not happy about them gaining territory in the Balkans. It made them nervous because Austria-Hungary just annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, so why not Serbia next? So Serbia wanted to bring them down. This lead to the Balkan Wars in 1908 – 1913. Tensions and suspicions were building between the European powers.
There were four major reasons for the ignition of WW1. The first one was militarism. Militarism is the idea that a country should maintain a strong military. Some countries did value militarism, most notably, Great Britain and Germany. Great Britain was extremely invested in their military, especially their navy. Great Britain always had been spending the biggest amount of their money on their navy. In 1890, Great Britain spent about 14 million pounds on their navy and as the lead up to WW1 continued, their spending did as well.
By 1914, Great Britain spent about 48 million pounds on their navy. Great Britain had the best ships and the most ships in the sea, which was why “Britannia rule the waves” was mentioned frequently. Germany was very militaristic, they spent more money on their military than anyone else! Over 100 million pounds! As the start of WW1 came closer and closer, there was an arms race. One country would spend more to get a stronger military and this would worry other countries, so they would spend more to make their military stronger.
In one of the sources from our DBQ, it shows Germany taking the “To war and barbarism” path and carrying an enormous gun. This enormous gun symbolises how powerful the military of Germany was. Having a strong military can make other countries very nervous and suspicions because they think that you could be going after them with your strong military. Which leads to the second cause of WW1, imperialism. Having more territory means more control and more power. In the spring of 1914, the world was being carved up or imperialized by European powers.
Great Britain had a colonial empire of 33,000,000 sq. km. with a population of 400,000,000. France had 11,500,000 sq. km. with a population of 56,000,000. But poor Germany had only a territory of 2,950,000 sq. km. with a population of 12,000,000. This did not make Germany happy, they needed more land in their empire. The third cause of WW1 was alliances. Before 1914 (before the central powers and the allies), there were many smaller alliances that formed. The Dual Alliance formed in 1879 between Germany and Austria-Hungary. Their agreement was to support each because of shared interests.
They both were against Russia and France and both wanted to imperialise in the Balkans. In 1882, the Triple Alliance was formed between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. The Dual Entente was formed in 1894 between Russia and France who both shared concerns about Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Entente Cordiale was formed in 1904 between England and France. Since France was aligned with Russia and England, they all formed together to form the Triple Entente in 1907. There was also an informal understanding between Russia and Serbia that said that Russia would protect if Serbia ever required.
When Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated, there was a huge domino effects of events one after the other. Austria-Hungary was mad at Serbia for killing their heir, so Serbia had Russia back them up. This made Austria-Hungary nervous so they sucked in Germany. Since France and England were aligned with Russia, they got pulled into the war as well. The last reason for the cause of WW1 was nationalism. During this time, many countries were very nationalistic. They had a lot of pride for their country and would do anything for their country.
They also thought that war was a very glorious thing and every guy wanted to be in the war. There were guys who were faking their birth certificates to say that they were 18 when they were younger than 18 just to get into the war. But when they got to the war, they realized how awful and brutal it was. There were some alliances that were useful and some that were not useful. I think that Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance were useful because they were aligned against a common enemy. But I don’t think the support between Serbia and Russia was useful. The only thing they had in common was the same culture.
In my opinion, I don’t think it would be useful to align with another country just because you share the same culture. It also didn’t seem useful for England to align with Belgium because when Germany marched into Belgium and violated their neutrality, England had to back them up. It seems completely unnecessary for a country to align with a neutral country because they don’t have the same goals. Some lessons that we have learned some WW1 are that alliances are like a double edged sword. They can help you if you get into a war, but you have to go into war something happens to your ally.
We also know now that if there is a conflict between two countries, they have to negotiate a solution and do anything before resulting to war. We often use sanctions before resorting to war. Sanctions cut off trade to a country so their economy will become ruined and prices for goods in that country will go way up. Currently, The United States is involved in a conflict with China in the South China Seas. China is building islands and claiming that this area is their territorial waters. This is not settling well with the U. S because they are concerned that China is imperializing in the South China Sea.
The U. S have navy vessels near the South China Sea and China has recently deployed anti-ship missiles to these islands, so the U. S is very concerned. The U. S says that “it opposes restrictions on freedom of navigation and unlawful sovereignty claims. ”. The U. S Secretary of State, John Kerry says that “The United States will make it clear that we are looking for a peaceful resolution to … the disputes of the South China Sea, Let’s not resolve this by unilateral action; let’s resolve this through rule of law, through diplomacy, through negotiation” (Daiss).
So John Kerry does not like what China is doing and is trying to stop it peacefully. I think that the U. S is remembering the lessons from WW1 because they are approaching the situation cautiously and trying to avoid war. That is the last thing the U. S wants because it could lead to a WW3. The U. S has many alliances with other countries and something happens with the U. S, their allies will get sucked in to cause a world war. I think we could deal with this by putting sanctions on China if they don’t stop building islands.
However, using sanctions shouldn’t be a long term solution to the problem because this could hurt America’s economy because we have a massive trading deal with China. I think we could also send ships over to our allies to are close to China to protect them if China tries to imperialise America’s allies. President Obama visited America’s allies in the Philippines and said, “We intend to transfer two additional ships to the Philippine navy… more capable navies and partnership with the United States are critical to the security of this region” (Beech).
